Chapter 94 - The Raising of a Dead Child part 5

Like children are wont to do, Ilio woke before me. I swam to awareness as he wriggled toward the entrance of our burrow. Disoriented and groggy, I watched him push against the stone I'd used to plug the mouth of our warren, realizing just a moment too late that it was still daylight outside our shelter. I opened my mouth to warn him, but my objection rose too slow to my lips. Ilio pushed out the stone before I could stop him and blazing light filled our sleeping hole.

Gleaming gold daggers stabbed into my eyes. Ilio shrieked and fell prone on the earthen floor, clapping his hands over his face.

"My eyes!" he wailed. "Thest, the light--! It hurts!"

Squinting my sensitive eyes to the glare, I slithered around the boy and pulled the stone back into place.

"It's all right now, Ilio," I said, after I'd restored the darkness. I patted him on the shoulder. "You can open your eyes now. It won't hurt."

"Why does the light hurt my eyes so much?" he sniffed.

"The transformation has made your eyes very sensitive. You're a nocturnal creature now."

"But you walk about in daylight."

I smiled. "It doesn't feel very nice."

He regarded me strangely a moment, his eyes rimmed with sticky black tears, and seeing the expression on his face, my guilt made me paranoid. What was he thinking right then? Was he remembering the monster who'd hunted his people in the night, taking one after another until he was the only one left? Had he realized I was the monster who orphaned him?

But no… he was too young. Innocent, he accepted all things at face value—even when the coincidence was too broad.

Perhaps because the coincidence was too broad.

I waited for the horror to dawn in his eyes, the accusations to fly from his lips. But my lies were his truth. He scrubbed his cheeks and smiled.

"I have much to learn," he admitted.

Relieved, I pulled him into my arms and hugged him. "You'll be fine."

We waited until the light shining round the stone first dimmed, then cycled from gold to orange and finally to purple. As we awaited nightfall, we conversed, speaking idly, joking around a little. We talked about the Neirie women Ilio had mated with, then women in general. He wanted to know if I'd ever seen a female Blood Drinker. Mostly Ilio questioned me-- questioned me incessantly, to be honest. He wanted to know about "my people" the Blood Drinkers, what they were like, how I came to be a vampire. I told him of the foul Blood Drinkers who'd plagued my human settlement, and how I'd come, against my will, to be inducted into their ranks, my vampiric sire intending to make me his slave. I told him of my revenge on the brutal being who made me an immortal, and how I'd hid away in the mountains, eschewing human interaction out of fear of harming those I loved.

And that is where my truthful recounting faltered and the lies began. I told Ilio nothing of my attempted suicide, or how I truly came to cross his path. I only told him that, after a time, I decided to come down from the mountains and explore the world, and that I'd crossed his path purely by coincidence, lost in the endless span of the tundra.

"And it was a lucky thing, too," Ilio said. "For there was another Blood Drinker preying on my tribe. A horrible, shriveled thing. If you'd not come along and frightened it off, it probably would have killed me, too."

If I could blush, I probably would have. "Yes. That was a lucky thing."

"Did you know there was another Blood Drinker hunting on the steppes?"

I shook my head. "No… I sensed no other presence. I was just wandering. I'd lost my way."

"He probably saw you and ran. Perhaps we'll meet him someday," Ilio said. His eyes narrowed with hate. "If we do, I shall try to kill him."

I remained silent.

"It looks as if night has come, Thest," Ilio said.

"Yes, let us rise. We should hunt and continue your training for a while."

As we wriggled from our little cave, Ilio asked, "Are you still returning to the Oombai village?"

I climbed from the hole behind him. The sky was deep blue and sprayed with night's first glittering stars. The temperature was cool and comfortable, a nice breeze rustling the foliage of the surrounding forest. Rising to my feet and dusting off my nude body, I answered the boy.

"Yes. The elders of their tribe have offended me. I do not like how they keep other human beings against their will. I am reminded of the monster that took me captive and forced this transformation upon me. I think it would be a service to their people if I killed the rest of those old men and freed them from their corruption."

Ilio regarded me, his eyes shining with admiration. "I want to go with you."

I laughed. "No, boy. You're too young, and we've not yet completed your training as a Blood Drinker. Your presence would only serve to distract me. I would be too worried about your safety."

Ilio crossed his arms petulantly. Perhaps he thought his stubbornness would impress me, but it only served to illustrate just how young and inexperienced he really was. Yes, he'd matured since our paths crossed. He had a rim of fuzz around his cock and a scruff of hair on his chin, but hairy nuts does not a man make.

Remember, the boy could have been no more than fourteen at the time. In that long ago age, that was nearly a man, but "nearly" was the key word. He was untried, and his face still bore the soft roundness of childhood, with big eyes and a small nose and broad, full lips. He was robust for his age, but he was also short and he had yet to develop a grown man's solidity.

He might one day have made an impressive warrior, but he was trapped now in that place between child and man. It saddened me for him, but there was naught that could be done about it. I had not changed a whit since my transformation to a Blood Drinker, and I did not expect him to mature further—although I could not be certain of it in those days. There was still much I did not know about our vampire nature then.

"Would you have me come to harm, Ilio?" I pressed him, a little exasperated.

"No!" he declared, looking ashamed of himself. "Of course not. Never."

"Then please do not vex me further about this. You nearly died in the village of the Ground Scratchers. I was forced to make you a Blood Drinker to preserve you, or have you forgotten already?"

"No… No. I'm sorry, Thest. I will not defy you."

I sighed. "Don't look so downtrodden, Ilio. It breaks my heart to see it. We will have many adventures together. We have many years ahead of us, and I promise I will not wet-nurse you forever."

He laughed.

Returning his smile, I said, "Now come. I'm starved. Let's find something to eat and we shall practice your new skills for a while before I visit my wrath upon the Oombai."